Computer 'dreams' projected with lasers

If computers could dream, what would their dreams look like?
That is the question posed by Ralf Baecker's Mirage installation that uses lasers and a
flexible mirror layer to project algorithmically generated data
onto a wall.

The piece uses input data from a fluxgate
magnetometer, a device that measures the magnetic field of the
Earth. This data is run through an artificial neural network to
create new versions of the magnetic readings. The algorithm is
based on the principle of a Helmholz
machine, which can learn the hidden structure of a set of data
by analysing signal and then generating its own variations, or
"hallucinations".

"Think of it like text generated by a computer that has
read a few websites before. It's human readable on the first look
but on the second it's nonsense. I am using a similar algorithm
taking data, learning data, and using it to generate versions (or
the metaphor hallucinations) of the previously perceived
magnetic flux," Baecker told Wired.co.uk.

These new machine "dreams" are then fed onto thin sheets of
mirror, which are manipulated by 48 wire actuators. The actuators
move depending on the algorithmically generated data to change the
shape of the surface of the mirror. A line of laser light is then
bounced off the surface of the mirror and onto a wall to generate
an evolving image that looks like a cross-section of a
landscape.

"I am speculating that the computers in the enormous Google data
centres cut off their perception (search queries, user behaviour,
speech recognition, image data) once a day and start to 'sleep',"
Baecker explains on his website.

He first had the idea a number of years ago when he heard a talk
about Helmholz machines by a computer scientist, who used the
metaphor of machines dreaming. At the same time, Baecker was
interested in building projection devices where the inner-workings
are exposed and transparent. After many experiments with different
materials, he settled on a sheet of mirrored acrylic glass attached
to little arms that can move the mirror by small amounts of under a
millimetre in range. By beaming a laser onto the surface at an
acute angle, the resulting projections are beautifully
compelling.

Wired.co.uk asked him what the projections represent. "It's not
about representation,"Baecker told us. "It's a scientific image. It
doesn't represent anything any more. It's a very contemplative
process, which moves very slowly."

The most challenging part of the development process was finding
the right materials -- particularly the mirror and the laser. He
worked on it intensively for 16 hours per day over eight weeks in
order to meet a deadline to have the piece displayed at LEAP
gallery in Berlin. The piece came together slowly and involved a
lot of fine-tuning of the angle of the laser on the surface in
order to get the desired effect. "Everything is inverted, so what
appears to be low [on the piece] is high [on the projection] and
what looks like the back is the front. Changing the direction of
the light by one millimetre had a huge effect on the images. So I
had to slowly find a method to find the best images."

Baecker's artistic practice tends to involve technology,
particularly those that have been "forgotten or lost". "There are
so many different image generating machines that weren't an
economic success. Now you have just one kind of display -- usually
LCD or LED screens or a projector," he says, adding that digging
into these old techniques is like "media archaeology".

Baeker is currently researching his next project, which aims to
explore the transition between digital ones and zeros. "I want to
take a normal computer and modify it to make these invisible states
-- the passage of states -- visible in some way. But it's just a
concept right now."